Quoted, Noted
by bikelock28
Summary: "It was Violet Fane who said, 'all things come to those who wait' but it was Barney Stinson who said, 'all things come to those who wait for it'- and this wedding has been a long time coming. It's 8 years since I pointed out the green sweater girl to Barney and he replied, 'Yeah, you just know she likes it dirty,"...Ted writes his best man speech. T/B, T/R friendship, Ted awesome.


**I wanted to write a story about the reception, but writing Ted's best man speech felt daunting. Then I realised that surely Ted would feel the same way, and I wondered how ****_he _****would get on writing his speech. **

**I don't own HIMYM, characters or any quotes/ books/ albums/ songs etc used.**

Quoted, Noted

Ted ran a hand through his spiky black hair and stuck the biro into his mouth. Giving it a chew, he ripped the scribbled-on page of yellow paper off the pad, crumpled it in his fist and threw it towards the wastepaper bin he kept on a shelf (a high shelf; to pretend it was a basketball hoop and he was LeBron James, of course). The paper ball curved perfectly and landed in the bin, and Ted muttered a celebratory, "Yes!"

He took the pen out of his mouth and clicked it a few times- before stopping abruptly when he remembered that it was an annoying habit which, strangely, three of his four best friends all did. During college Ted would turn his Walkman up full blast to block out the sound of Marshall's incessant pen-clicking, and during games of Pictionary or And In The End, Ted and Lily would be driven insane by Marshall, Barney and Robin clicking_ all_ clicking their biros.

Putting the pen down, Ted flipped back over to the previous page on the yellow pad; so far, the page with the best draft of his Best Man's speech for the wedding which was happening less than a month from now. So far, it read:

_Ted's Best Man Speech_

_Robin Scherbatsky's wedding, eh? [pause for stunned silence]_

_Barney Stinson's wedding, hey? [pause for people to fall off chairs in shock] _

_It was Violet Fane who wrote, "all things come to those who wait," but it was Barney Stinson who said, "All things come to those who__wait for it,"__and this wedding __has __been a long time coming. It's 8 years since I pointed out the girl in the green sweater to Barney, and he replied, "Yeah, you just know she likes it dirty,"_

_[Pause]- Perhaps unusual first words about wife, but unusual story. Friends first- played Laser Tag, cigars, commitment-phobes (joke?), always having laugh together, esp. at my expense. _

_(No mention of Sandcastles sex!)_

_And all this friendship and jokes and teasing and wingmanning led to the unthinkable happening- Barney Stinson fell in love. [pause for aaw/eugh]_

_Didn't believe it at first; as Robin's favourite band the Spice Girls once sang, "Now you tell me that you've fallen in love, well I never ever thought that would be"- but somehow, it was._

_B pines after R for a year; several smashed TVs and a great right-hook he used on himself, and me! M &amp; L calculate for B &amp; R have to sit next to each other in booth. But R thinks B is womanising sociopath incapable of a relationship. We all agreed- especially Barney. _

_After that Summer which they still won't tell us much about [exaggeratedly disapproving glance], B and R were __finally __persuaded into dating. There were some fun times- M and L can tell you the story of their attempts at double-dating, and Barney helped Robin pass her Canadian citizenship- but it didn't work out__(should avoid mention of old/fat/ eating the Relationship Chicken, but tbh too funny not to include)_

_Break-up= 2 friends getting back together as friends. R lives with me, and we all hung out together happy happy happy. _

_Of course, I've enjoyed many crazy expeditions as Barney's friend. Once, he dragged me to Philadelphia to lick the Liberty Bell- and no, folks, that is not a euphemism. We spent many hours hanging out in MacLaren's- so many in fact that one evening we ended up__ running __the place. We've started a Mariarchi band together, got arrested together- though I assure you ladies and gentlemen, it was his fault- and we even adopted a baby….for an afternoon. _

_I've loved every single one of these insane flights of fancy we've been on together- but I've always needed persuading…or bribing to join in, whereas R has always been up for any madcap scheme B has- no persuading needed. _

_You've never heard about their adventures together? Murtargh, Nat Hist., cigars, R even helps B pick up girls!_

_And so, although they dated (and slept with?) other people, we always knew that there was something (still) there._

_Well, I'm sure you've all heard the story of their engagement, but if not, Patrice [point to- CHECK SEATING PLAN SO YOU KNOW HERE SHE IS] will be more than happy to expl. Utterly ridiculous, but seems about right for these two [smile]_

_Make each other so happy; happier than suits or Canucks victory (too cringey?)- never needs to be the dynamic uno again [DO NOT CRY AT THAT BIT TED]._

_Proof that, as Frau Blucher says in Young Frankenstein, "Love comes when you least expect it," [German accent optional depending on how much wine drunk]._

_Proof that, as WH Auden once wrote [choose a quote from _Oh Tell Me The Truth About Love]

_And proof that_

That was where Ted's speech went up to. Although it needed more work in some areas, he reckoned that it was decent so far and he was satisfied with the skeleton of the speech. He was confident about working in a few more jokes and anecdotes, so he has leaving that until later. What was bugging him was the end. 'Quotes work best in threes,' Ted's eigth-grade English teacher had told him, and for some reason Ted has always remembered that. But now he only had two to end on (well, he'd have two once he'd made his mind up about the WH Auden line but, again, he could do that later).

_Shakespeare Miscellany _and _The Complete Works of Pablo Neruda _open on the desk in front of him, but Will and Pablo didn't seem to have the type of quote Ted was looking for, and Oscar Wilde's Wikiquote page wasn't helping either. Ted staunchly refused to take a look at his copy of _Being The Best Man For Dummies- _it was this forth time being doing the job; he didn't need to be told how to write a speech. But because it was_Barney's _wedding, and his wedding _to Robin_ at that, Ted knew he needed a zinger to end on.

Sighing, he admitted defeat and Googled 'best man speech quotes'. He clicked on the first website and rolled his eyes because they were nearly all super-sentimental, ones for the groom's little brother to say, or below-the-belt gags which Ted thought he'd leave for Barney to use in his groom's speech. He smiled at Charles Schultz's_ "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love,"- _but because it fitted his own situation, not because it would make sense at the end of his best man speech. However, the quote from the _Peanuts_ creator made Ted realise that perhaps he didn't need something classy and high-brow; perhaps he should keep it simple and ordinary. He went back to basics; thinking of the first things which came into his head to finish the sentence 'and proof that love is'. And proof that love is…_old, love is new, love is all, love is new_. Too cliché. Love is _noise, love is pain, love is these blues that I'm singin' again. _That song was big during the Summer he was engaged to Stella. Barney always dismissed it as, "Ted's indie crap,". Love is…_a losing game. _Robin had had an Amy Winehouse phase, but it was a nonsensically inappropriate quote for a wedding. Love is _more than just a game for two, two in love can make it; take my heart and please don't break it- _Ted smiled because he remembered a night years ago, when he and Barney had danced clumsily through the apartment singing that song as a drunken duet;

_"__L!"_

_ "__Is for the way you look! At me, _Barney!" They turned their heads abruptly to look at each other.

_"__O! Is for the only one I see,"_

_ "__V-eeee is very, very-"_

_"__Extraordinary_," they giggled in unison, adopting exaggeratedly foppish British accents.

_"__E is every more than everyone but you adore," _ Ted sang, muddling the words and stumbling over the wastepaper basket as he span, "_Love is all that I can give to you,"_

_"__Love! Is more than just a game for two_\- Ted this is the best bit!"

_"__Twoooo in love can make it-"_

_"__Take my heart and please don't break it," _Barney begged, dropping to his knees and clutching onto Ted's t-shirt.

_"__Yeah, love was made for me and you! Love was made for me and you! Love! Was made for me and yoooou!"_

_"_Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-da-ba-duh- daaaaaah!" Barney sang the outro happily, dragging Ted down onto the floor with him into a spluttering, laughing, red-faced tangle.

"Love was made for us, right Barney?" murmured Ted breathlessly, but Barney was too busy laughing and semi-wrestling with him to listen.

"Yeah, dude. Play it again,"

Ted staggered up from the floor, over to the CD player, and pressed Repeat.

Enjoying the memory from that night eight or nine years since, Ted got up to check if he still had the CD. After a couple of minutes of searching, he found it- _The Essential Nat King Cole - _between _An Awesome Wave _and _Teach Yourself Portuguese. _A few years after the night he and Barney had danced around to the Cole album, Ted had been playing it again and ended up bickering cheerfully with Robin about if Nat King Cole was better than Michael Buble.

"I'm telling you, it's Buble,"

"_How?"_

"He's got a smoother voice. Cole constantly sounds on edge,"

"That's the _recordings,_" Ted had countered, "Buble goes for the final chorus of every song too much- it loses meaning. Cole never goes OTT,"

"Because his voice isn't good enough to sustain a big finish,"

"Buble's _Canadian," _Ted shuddered.

She sighed, "I knew it wouldn't be long until you brought that up,"

Now, Ted couldn't remember how long they'd fought about it, but it had been a good evening. Their friendship had been at the easy, brother-sister stage he'd really enjoyed. Smiling, Ted read the track listings on the back of _The Essential Nat King Cole _CD case- and his eye was caught by _Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing. _

_Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing. _It was a simple, sweet song. It was a fun title to get his lips around, with lots of nice arrangements of consonants. The quote sounded grand for the end of the speech, but it wasn't too obscure- or too what Robin would call 'douchey'.

Ted jotted the line down at the bottom of the paper.

_Proof that, as Frau Blucher says in Young Frankenstein, "Love comes when you least expect it," [German accent optional depending on how much wine drunk]._

_Proof that, as WH Auden once wrote [choose a quote from Oh Tell Me The Truth About Love]_

_And proof that, in the words of Nat King Cole, "Love is a many-splendored thing,"_

Ted read the speech through again and concluded that it would do for now. He put his pen back into his pencil-case, clicked off his desk-lamp and got up to go to bed, whistling _L-O-V-E._

Heading for the stairs, he stopped with a jolt when a thought came to him abruptly. A different ending to_love is._

He didn't know if it was from a lyric or a movie quote, or something 'douchey'- or something he'd thought of himself- but it had come in a flash of inspiration, and Ted always recorded his flashes of inspiration. He rushed back over to the desk, fumbled for a pen, flicked the lamp back on and jotted down the phrase - _'Love is the best thing we do'. _

Pleased that he'd noted it down before he forgot it, Ted muttered the line under his breath, and substituted it in for the last sentence of the speech instead of_many splendored thing. _He wasn't sure: it sounded sincere and hopeful, yet perhaps sincere wasn't what he was looking for. Sincerity, he imagined, wouldn't have a big place at Barney's wedding. He read it over once more, and concluded that he'd stick with _many splendored thing. _Yes- while he was glad that he'd noted down _love is the best thing we do, _it just sounded too cheesy and spiritual.

But perhaps he could use it later.

**Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Whatever you thought, please review to let me know. Thanks again. **


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